There are five railroad crossings located within the city limits of Winder, and there is only one underpass, said Bob Beck, the city administrator.

The railroad tracks, which date to the 1890s and are today operated by CSX Transportation of Jacksonville, Fla., parallel Georgia Highway 8, known in town as May Street.

"The real problem we've got with putting in an underpass is the closeness (of the railroad tracks) with Highway 8," Beck said. "There's just not enough room ... to effectively to (build) an overpass or underpass."

In other words, the grade crossings are here to stay.

With the volume of traffic in downtown Winder, trains and cars or pedestrians tangle in town from time to time. A couple of years ago, about a dozen such incidents were reported, but the number has dropped below 10, to about seven per year, Dorsey said.

So far in 2007, there have been three train-car mishaps, according to city officials. The last train-related fatality in town was in October 2004, when an elderly woman was killed at the Athens Street crossing, which at the time didn't have gates, Dorsey said.

In January, after a slow-moving train struck a Jeep a South Carolina man was towing with a motor home, the train stopped for about 30 minutes before resuming.

Last month, a train struck an 18-wheeler, and though it tied up traffic, no one was injured.

The tractor-trailer truck was stopped on the tracks on Broad Street when a train approached. Although the driver pulled up to avoid being struck by a train, he rear-ended a Ford Mustang, and the train struck the truck's empty trailer anyway.

Police charged the trucker with several traffic violations, which is typical in such cases.

"We do cite them for stopping on the tracks, failure to yield - whatever the circumstances call for," Dorsey said.

"Most of ours are carelessness, careless drivers, impatient," Dorsey said. "99.99 percent of the time, if you're hit by a train, it's your fault."